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Bars where Pete has had a Drink (5,608 bars; 1,754 bars in Seattle) - Click titles below for Lists:


Bars where Pete has had a drink

Sunday, March 01, 2009

#776 - Chester Club & Oyster Bar, South Bend, WA - 3/1/2009

Chester Club Tavern, South Bend, WA


If you want to find the real characters in the Willapa Bay area -- and there appears to be no shortage of them -- this is the place to go.

On a return visit to the Chester Club (or Chester Tavern) in Jan 2016, we had some old school bar food lunch and chatted with local Ed, who pointed out some of the historical photos, talked about his years as a millwright, and proudly showed us photos of his granddaughter. Since the mid 90s, the bar has been known for its fried oysters, which captured the attention of the New York Times.

The Chester Tavern has been here in South Bend a long time. Various sources date it being founded by Oscar Chester in 1897, although I have not seen any primary sources to support this and the only Oscar Chester I could find in the area in census records was born in 1889 (and presumably unlikely to establish a saloon at age 8). If anyone could provide me any additional data on sources, I would love to see it.







Trista, Ed - Chester Club, South 
1005 Robert Bush Drive West, South Bend, WA 98586 - (360) 875-5599
Est. 1897?
Web site: facebook
Reviews: New York Times - yelp - tripadvisor

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Next time you're there read the NY times article on the wall about the Chester club. Nothing fancy but the cheapest fried oysters on the Pacific coast.